


The Thing About Gravity

by timeisweird



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Dr Nyarlathotep | Time Lords Are Aliens, Gen, it sort of counts as that i suppose
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-20
Updated: 2017-12-20
Packaged: 2019-02-17 10:23:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,686
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13074882
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/timeisweird/pseuds/timeisweird
Summary: ...is that it's optional for Time Lords.Or, Donna isn’t quite sure if it’s the TARDIS or the Doctor, but someone needs to tell the both of them that there are rules to this sort of thing.





	The Thing About Gravity

**Author's Note:**

> neutral pronouns for the doctor, because why not.

The TARDIS is old. Or at least, Donna presumes it is. It’s a theory of hers based entirely on the number of ‘malfunctions’ she’s experienced in her time traveling with the Doctor, and the few times she’s seen the Doctor tinkering with the ship’s console, intending to replace parts with bits and pieces nabbed from computers and TV remotes and alien mechanic shops.

It’s not as if the TARDIS is unreliable, though. Oh God no. They’ve been bombarded by space pirates and attacked by strange creatures in the Time Vortex that looked vaguely like dinosaurs, and the time ship had held up every time. Not even a scratch on the paint.

Still, it does have the air of her late dad’s beat-up old sedan. Seats patched together with duct tape, a piece of bungee cord holding the bumper together, and that odd noise the motor makes for a few seconds after you pull the keys out of the ignition. That’s what it’s like.

So, she isn’t all that surprised when she opens the door to her room one night to find the whole place upside down. Proper upside down, too, with the bed, the lamp, and the rest of the furniture attached to the ceiling. The covers don’t even droop, nor does the glass of water she had left on the night stand fall or drip.

She closes the door. Gives the TARDIS a minute, and then opens it again.

Everything’s right-side up again. Bed on the floor, glass of water once again obeying the lovely Laws of Physics that define Donna’s world.

Donna starts to think the TARDIS is just messing with her when the gravity shuts off completely.

She’s in the console room when it happens, and is currently halfway up towards the ceiling, hanging onto a coral strut for dear life.

“Doctor!” she shouts at the top of her lungs. “Doctor, where are you?!”

They dart into the console room, looking around frantically. “Donna? What’s wrong?”

She’s too confused to answer at first, because the gravity’s _off_ and they’re just standing there on their own two feet, no problem.

Before she can find her voice, the Doctor finds her. “What are you doing up there?” they ask.

“The gravity’s gone off again, you moron!” She feels herself slipping, the sweat on her hands making her lose her grip on the coral, and readjusts.

“Oh, has it?” And only _then_ does the Doctor’s feet leave the ground as they gently float into the air. “And what do you mean again?”

Have they really not noticed the gravity issues yet? Just last week, she was making tea in the kitchen when this same thing happened - gravity went _kaput_ and she was left with tea all over her blouse.

“Just fix it!” she says. They can argue about it when she’s _not_ floating ten feet off the ground.

Luckily, The Doctor manages to grab onto the TARDIS console before they float off too far, and after some complicated maneuvers, Donna falls in a heap to the ground.

“Oww,” she groans, shifting herself into a sitting position. She runs a hand through her hair (which is a terrible rat’s nest) and looks to see where the Doctor fell -- should have fallen, that is. Because they’re still floating in the air.

“Okay,” she says slowly, drawing the Doctor’s attention to her.

“Just a temporary gravity bubble,” they say quickly. “I just remembered - there’s some repairs I need to do on the time rotor. Special fancy circuits at the top that need re-soldering.” And with that, they reach for a toolbox at the base of the console, and with a funny sort of swimming motion, they move towards the ceiling of the TARDIS.

“I’m going to take a bath,” Donna says, pulling herself off the ground. A long bath, with lots of bubbles and maybe a few of those lavender candles. And a good cup of tea.

Later, after a harrowing adventure involving an alien gang and the Doctor blowing up a drug cartel business, Donna opens the door to the kitchen. It would have probably been an early hour of the morning, had they been anywhere but a time ship traveling through the Time Vortex.

And this time, instead of the room being upside down, it’s the Doctor.

They’re sitting cross legged on the ceiling, with a odd metal box that looks like it’s being held together by duct tape in one hand, and their sonic screwdriver in the other.

They doesn’t seem to notice her, too preoccupied with sonicking their weird metal box, until Donna clears her throat.

The Doctor looks up (Or down, rather) and grins when they see her. “Oh, hello Donna!”

“You’re on the ceiling.”

They look down at themselves. “Am I?”

“Yes, yes you are. You’re on the bloody ceiling. And can I just ask, what are you doing up there?”

They look down at their box, then back to her. “Changing the light bulbs,” they say.

She glances to the light fixture beside them. A good two feet away from them, that is. There’s no way in hell they’re changing light bulbs.

The Doctor continues, “Yeah, see, I thought it’d be easier if I just… reversed the gravity. In this room only.”

Just to be safe, she takes a step away from the door, leaving her at a comfortable distance from the threshold of the room. Okay, if that’s how they want this to go, she’ll play along. “Why didn’t you just - get a ladder or something?”

“Well--” they start, but then a bit of the metal box falls _off_ and whatever explanation they had planned trails off as the two of them watch the bit fall _down_ onto the floor.

It lands with a _ding_ against the tile.

Donna stares at the bit and then stares at the Doctor. They watch each other for a moment.

“I can explain,” they blurt.

She crosses her arms, waiting. And quite frankly, she’s amazed by her ability to look calm because on the inside, she keeps going over the fact that _the gravity isn’t reversed it’s not reversed and they’re on the ceiling why are they still on the ceiling just sitting there like nothing’s wrong something’s wrong something has to be wrong_

“You see, these, uh - my shoes are magnetic. And so’s this ceiling. ” They’re obviously making it up on the spot, but quite frankly, Donna just takes it, because she doesn’t know what to make of whatever the alternative is.

So, she says, “Fine, whatever spaceman,” and shuts the door. Who needs tea? Tea’s well-overrated. Weird alien liquor? Now _that’s_ in vogue.

The liquor seemed to help, because she had forgotten all about it by the time they’re on the roof of a twenty story building, held captive by gang members hellbent on revenge for the little stunt she and the Doctor pulled weeks ago. Well, weeks for them. For the gangsters, it had been a few months, but that wasn’t the important thing.

The important thing was they had a gun to the Doctor’s head, and Donna was struggling against the two men who held her arms behind her back, but _damn_ they were strong.

“Oh, oh now really,” the Doctor’s babbling as they nudge them closer and closer to the edge. “Is this anyway to treat a captive? Death by concrete. Because, as I’m sure you lot know, it’s not actually the falling that kills you but the sudden impact. Trust me, I know, it’s not a lot of--”

And without even a moment's pause (they _always_ pause, they _always_ give them a chance to talk their way out of it, to free themselves, to _live_ ), they push them over the edge.

But Donna freezes before she can even scream when she watches the Doctor… stumble in the air and then… _stop_.

She doesn’t dare breathe as she watches them sort of, twist in the air and look around at the gangsters, who are staring at them with horror, fury, and just plain confusion.

The Doctor's face is one of concentration, but they’ve also managed to wear the most shit-eating grin she has possibly ever seen, and at that moment, Donna wants to slap it right off them.

After the both of them manage to escape the gangsters and make it back to the TARDIS with minimal injury, Donna grabs the Doctor by their tie and pulls them close.

“When the _hell_ were you going to tell me that _gravity_ is _optional_ for you?” she demands, because even though she’s thankful (so, so thankful) that the Doctor managed to survive being thrown off a skyscraper, she could have done without the heart attack of thinking they were going to be _thrown off a skyscraper._

“Oh, well,” they stammer. “It’s not exactly _optional_ , it’s more a manipulation of the eleven--”

She glares. They wince.

“Right. Okay, so I was planning on telling you… Never?”

She tightens her grip on their tie. “Because that’s such a good idea?”

“It never really came up in the past!”

“It sure as hell came up just then! I was thinking they were going to kill you, and I was going to have to watch you fall to your _death._ I know you just love pretending everything’s fine and keeping your cards close to your chest, but sometimes, you have to tell me stuff, alright?”

They nod wordlessly.

Donna sighs, and lets go of their tie, which they adjust profusely for a moment. They walk up to the console and set about sending the TARDIS into the Vortex. Donna plops herself down on the jumpseat, watching them.

Once the TARDIS takes off, they clear their throat. “Sorry,” they say sincerely. “To be frank, though, I thought you would have realized earlier.”

She probably should have, she thinks to herself. Outloud, she says, “If I had, I would’ve said something sooner, don’t you think?”

They rub at the back of their neck. “Yeaaah…”

There’s an awkward pause, filled only with the gentle wheezing of the TARDIS.

“So,” Donna says. “Where are we going now?”

The Doctor grins.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks to [xander genocidaltheta](http://www.genocidaltheta.tumblr.com) for helping me come up with the ideas for this fic!


End file.
